Our Germans

Project Paperclip and the National Security State

Brian E. Crim

Publication Year: 2017

Project Paperclip brought hundreds of German scientists and engineers, including aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, to the United States in the first decade after World War II. More than the freighters full of equipment or the documents recovered from caves and hastily abandoned warehouses, the German brains who designed and built the V-2 rocket and other “wonder weapons” for the Third Reich proved invaluable to America’s emerging military-industrial complex. Whether they remained under military employment, transitioned to civilian agencies like NASA, or sought more lucrative careers with corporations flush with government contracts, German specialists recruited into the Paperclip program assumed enormously influential positions within the labyrinthine national security state.
Drawing on recently declassified documents from intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the State Department, Brian Crim’s Our Germans examines the process of integrating German scientists into a national security state dominated by the armed services and defense industries. Crim explains how the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency enticed targeted scientists, whitewashed the records of Nazis and war criminals, and deceived government agencies about the content of security investigations. Exploring the vicious bureaucratic rivalries that erupted over the wisdom, efficacy, and morality of pursuing Paperclip, Our Germans reveals how some Paperclip proponents and scientists influenced the perception of the rival Soviet threat by volunteering inflated estimates of Russian intentions and technical capabilities.
As it describes the project’s embattled legacy, Our Germans reflects on the myriad ways that Paperclip has been remembered in culture and national memory. As this engaging book demonstrates, whether characterized as an expedient Cold War program born from military necessity or a dishonorable episode, the project ultimately reflects American ambivalence about the military-industrial complex and the viability of an “ends justifies the means” solution to external threats.

Cover

Half Title, Title Page, Copyright

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

This book began as a seminar paper in an elective diplomatic history course
taught by Warren Kimball and Lloyd Gardner at Rutgers University during
my first semester in the doctoral program. There is no doubt it was the worst
paper I wrote in my graduate career, but my fascination with the subject endured.
I am beholden to Warren Kimball in particular for savaging my work, ...

List of Abbreviations

Introduction

The story of Wernher von Braun and his rocket team’s harrowing escape from
the collapsing Third Reich into the warm embrace of a former enemy is one
of the more exciting and significant moments from the final days of World
War II. As the Red Army approached the Peenemünde research complex on
the Baltic coast, the SS (Schutzstaffel), ...

1.
​Aristocracy of Evil: The Paperclippers and Nazi Science

Walter Jessel, a German Jew who escaped Nazi Germany only to return as a
US soldier assigned to Patton’s Third Army and eventually to the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS), had the distinction of interrogating German scientists
and military officers during their first month of captivity.1 ...

2.
​Implements of Progress: The Military’s Case for Paperclip

In early 1945 intelligence and technical teams assigned to Anglo-American
forces descended on the disintegrating Third Reich determined to locate and
secure Germany’s “wonder weapons” before they wreaked more havoc. Separately,
the US Alsos mission scrambled to uncover the extent to which the
Nazis had progressed toward producing their own atomic bomb. ...

3.
​Conscientious Objectors: The State Department and Opposition to Project Paperclip

The exchange between Major Simpson of the JIOA and senior State Department
official Herbert Cummings regarding the appointment of Samuel Klaus
to the JIOA reveals the extraordinary personal animosity between the military’s
strongest Paperclip advocates and wary civilian bureaucrats opposed to an
unfettered exploitation program. ...

4.
​Their Germans: German Scientists, the Soviet Union, and the US Intelligence Community

The Soviet Union provided both the impetus and the justification for Project
Paperclip and its successor programs during the Cold War. While the State
Department and some intelligence officials warned against a Nazi revival in
the Western hemisphere, specifically at the hands of military research scientists,
...

5.
​Paperclip Vindicated: German Scientists and the Maturation of the National Security State

The decade between the end of Paperclip’s acquisition phase in September
1947 and the launching of Sputnik in October 1957 seemingly vindicated
the German scientists program. The contentious immigration issue and
parade of embarrassing revelations related to Paperclip dissipated in the wake
of increased Soviet aggressiveness in Europe, ...

Epilogue

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957. The national security
state seemed both terrified and energized by what Senator Lyndon Johnson
called a “disaster . . . comparable to Pearl Harbor.”1
The news broke the
same day that the recently confirmed secretary of defense, Neil McElroy, ...

Welcome to Project MUSE

Use the simple Search box at the top of the page or the Advanced Search linked from the top of the page to find book and journal content. Refine results with the filtering options on the left side of the Advanced Search page or on your search results page. Click the Browse box to see a selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.